Starring alongside Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, Hathaway plays Fantine, a single mother who sells her hair and turns to prostitution to feed her child.

And she’s lost more than her locks for the role. Hathaway’s rep said earlier this week that Hathaway has also had to lose weight for the part.

Now filming on-location in England, the actress recently took in a historical tour about Victorian ropery – the art of making rope. “She kept very quiet and was writing in a notebook,” local mom Jo Lord told the U.K.’s Medway Messenger.

“I thought, ‘That looks like Anne Hathaway!’ but thought she was too skinny,” Lord said, adding that her daughter, a fan of Hathaway’s 2001 film The Princess Diaries, helped her spot the actress.